Between Different Cultures: Essays in Conversation with Yang Huilin

by David Jasper (Editor), Jing (Cathy) Zhang (Editor)

Overview

The significance of the work of Yang Huilin (Professor of Comparative Literature and Religious Studies, Renmin University of China, Beijing) is widely recognized in numerous scholarly fields. Professor Yang’s career is further distinguished by his service as vice president of Renmin University and as president of the Chinese Comparative Literature Association. The author of numerous books in the fields of cultural studies, comparative literature, and religion, in 2015 Professor Yang was awarded a Christianity Today Book Award for his book China, Christianity, and the Question of Culture (Baylor UP).

In celebration of Professor Yang’s scholarly contributions, Between Different Cultures presents a representative collection of the editorials Professor Yang has written for the journal he founded in 1999, the Journal for the Study of Christian Culture, of which he is the current editor. Each editorial, originally written in Chinese, is paired with an essay from a leading European or North American scholar whose work has connected with Yang Huilin. These essays illustrate the remarkable range of Professor Yang’s scholarship and his involvement with many of the most important issues in global cultural and theological debates over the past three decades.

A tireless traveler, Professor Yang has made numerous friendships with scholars across the world, and those relationships have in turn contributed to the cultural exchanges between the West and China. In just such a spirit of camaraderie and collaboration, these essays are offered as a token of admiration and regard.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781481322201
Publisher:	Baylor University Press
Publication date:	08/25/2025
Pages:	253
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x (d)

About the Author

David Jasper is Professor Emeritus of Literature and Theology at the University of Glasgow and former Chang Jiang Visiting Professor at Renmin University.

Zhang Jing (Cathy) is Associate Researcher at the Institute for the Promotion of Chinese Language and Culture at Renmin University.

Table of Contents

Introduction
David Jasper and Zhang Jing
1 The Public Face of Theology and the Theological Concern of Humanity Scholars
Yang Huilin
Response: Adjunct Theology
Alexander Chow
2 Being Absent in Place
Yang Huilin
Response: The Outsources of Public Theology
Andrew W. Hass
3 What Is a Theological Event?
Yang Huilin
Response: What Is a Theological Event?
Alison Jasper
4 The Common Significance of Poetics and Theology
Yang Huilin
Response: Poetry and Theology in China
David Jasper
5 "Reasoning" in the Reading of Scriptures
Yang Huilin
Response: Yang Huilin and the Promise of Chinese Scriptural Reasoning
David F. Ford
6 The "Verbal" Logic of Cultural Identity: Shifts in Missionaries’ Identities and Sense of Identification
Yang Huilin
Response: Musing on Missionary Identity
Chloë Starr
7 "Translating the Scripture" and "Interpreting the Scripture"
Yang Huilin
Response: Faith and Love in Intercultural Hermeneutics
Werner Jeanrond
8 How Can the Discourse of Faith Intervene in the World?: Jürgen Moltmann and the Significance of "Hope"
Yang Huilin
Response: Persistent Hope
Jürgen Moltmann
9 A "Nonreligious" Christianity and an "Atheist" Theology
Yang Huilin
Response: Understanding Scripture
David Lyle Jeffrey
10 The Origin and Extension of Concerns on the "Ultimate"
Yang Huilin
Response: Opposite yet Complementary
Roland Boer
Bibliography of the Work of Yang Huilin

What People are Saying About This

Jason Lam

Can a Communist Party member be a good theologian? Yes. This collection of Yang Huilin’s works, presented in dialogue with leading contemporary theologians, demonstrates how a professor of comparative literature in the PRC engages rigorously with Christian scriptures, theology, and contextual issues—producing meaningful discourse for both the academy and the church, and revealing that the divine manifests not only between cultures, but above and in all realms.

Zhang Longxi

Bringing together eminent scholars from Europe, North America, and Australia in response to Chinese scholar Yang Huilin, this volume is a brilliant example of the lively and extremely meaningful dialogue between China and the West. It covers many dimensions of humanistic scholarship, including theology, philosophy, Christianity in China, hermeneutics, poetics, and comparative literature. This is an important book for our time and for the future of our world. Highly recommended!

David Fergusson

A fitting and imaginative tribute to Yang Huilin, a foremost Sino-Christian theologian, this volume represents an important profiling of his work. Huilin’s essays alongside the responses from an array of distinguished scholars develop a genre that is global, comparative, and cross-disciplinary. His formidable output deserves to be widely known and studied worldwide.